Canada training Palestinian troops as part of controversial plan to create a security force in the West Bank

Canada training Palestinian troops as part of controversial program

Canada’s vigorous defence of Israel has dramatically raised this country’s profile in the region, earning praise and condemnation. Today, in part two of a four-part series, the National Post’s Tom Blackwell explores Canada’ role in training controversial Palestinian troops and prosecutors.

Arrayed in neat rows on a parade ground near the centre of Ramallah, the camouflage-clad soldiers look professional, disciplined — and very well armed.

They are not Israeli troops, generally reviled in the West Bank Palestinian capital. Rather, these men are the surprising product of a little-known program to create, in effect, a Palestinian army on Israel’s doorstep — a force that exists in no small part because of Canadian military personnel and taxpayer dollars.

For the past eight years, Canada, the U.S. and other Western countries have helped train and equip more than 8,000 Palestinian security troops — as well as thousands of police and other officers — despite misgivings from both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

As the Second Intifada raged from 2000 to 2005, general chaos prevailed in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers fought Palestinian militants and a steady stream of suicide bombers claimed the lives of more than 600 Israelis.

The new National Security Force troops are part of a Palestinian security apparatus that their own commanders, Western advisors and even the Israeli military say has helped transform the territory into a relatively orderly, bustling land.

And the Canadian-backed program has actually brought together the two sides of the conflict — at the military level at least — in ways seen nowhere else, said P.J. Dermer, a retired U.S. Marine colonel who worked for the “United States Security Co-ordinator (USSC)” project in its early years and now is writing a history of it.

The mission is led by Americans but Canadian soldiers have been invaluable from the beginning, sometimes even outnumbering U.S. counterparts, says Col. Dermer.

Hands down, it simply would not have happened without the Canadians

“Hands down, it simply would not have happened without the Canadians,” he said. “You really cannot commend them enough.”

Canada supplied much of the funding for the USSC in its first couple of years and, unlike the Americans, has allowed its soldiers to travel freely in the West Bank, Col. Dermer noted.

It has also played a large role in a parallel, European-headed project to help develop a civil police force. The Canadian government is even building a firing range for the Palestinians to “further confidence in their shooting skills.”

Yet in the highly charged climate of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the programs are a touchy topic. So sensitive, it seems, that the U.S. State Department — which oversees the USSC program — flatly refused to let the Canadian Forces discuss their work with the National Post, even after an intervention by the office of Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister.

Some commentators on the Israeli right — though not the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) themselves — fret that the well-trained troops will one day turn their guns on Israel.

“Israel could find itself fighting a war against Palestinians who are armed, trained, and financed by its greatest ally — the United States,” warned conservative journalist David Bedein in a report earlier this year.

Mark Regev leans forward in his chair at a sunny outdoor cafe in Jerusalem’s botanical gardens, eager to make the point clear.

His boss, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is not just a colleague of Stephen Harper, he says.

“My prime minister considers Prime Minister Harper to be a close friend … no doubt about it,” said Mr. Regev, the Israeli PM’s international spokesman. “There is a special connection between the two leaders.”

That personal warmth mirrors the extraordinarily strong support the Harper government has lent to Israel in the last few years.

From vigorously opposing the Palestinian bid for non-voting state status at the United Nations, to paying a controversial visit to an Israeli cabinet minister in east Jerusalem, the Conservatives have arguably become the Jewish state’s most steadfast international ally.

The government has also shown interest in helping advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Whether that is now in the cards is debatable. Some commentators here say Canada has lost any influence it might have had with the Palestinians and Arab nations, others say its new-found position of trust with Israel will make its advice — even if uncomfortable — more likely to be heard by Mr. Netanyahu.

One fact seems clear: Canada has got itself noticed in this region like rarely before.

From the other side, there is concern that the Palestinian security forces are doing Israel’s work in the West Bank, combating terrorism and other threats even as Israel continues to occupy the territory and expand contentious Jewish settlements there.

“In a sense, Canada couldn’t care less about the security of the Palestinians who are under occupation, who are being violated by the [Jewish] settlers and so on,” charged Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Authority executive council. “What they care about is to make sure the Palestinians maintain peace and quiet, law and order, when it comes to Israel.”

She said every protest against the Authority starts now with complaints about Palestinian security links to Israel. “This is something that has undermined the credibility of the Palestinian leadership drastically.”

Much of the actual training of the Palestinian National Security Force — the Authority’s closest thing to an army — has taken place at a U.S.-funded facility in neighbouring Jordan.

The Canadians — whose contribution is called Operation Proteus — have focused in part on developing high-tech operations centres in Ramallah and other parts of the West Bank that take in information on security incidents and help dispatch the appropriate security response.

Troops from this country have also played a crucial role in meeting with Palestinian and Israeli commanders around the West Bank, assessing the situation and acting as trusted third parties who encourage co-ordination, said Col. Dermer.

As part of the overlapping EU-led effort to train the separate Palestinian police force, Canada’s contributions have ranged from helping build a new police academy to teaching self-defence and advising how to deal with violence against women.

A Canadian donation of helmets and vests for Palestinian crowd-control officers, though, was barred by fearful Israeli authorities, said Khaled Sabateen, the police chief of staff.

In a sense, Canada couldn’t care less about the security of the Palestinians who are under occupation

He confirmed in an interview there is regular co-ordination with the Israelis, including even workshops on issues such as traffic control, yet noted that serious problems between them remain.

Palestinian police, for instance, are unable to pursue car thieves, drug dealers and other criminals outside the parts of the West Bank — called “Area A” — where they have jurisdiction.

When people call to complain about alleged vandalism or violence against Palestinians by Jewish settlers, officers are also helpless to respond, said Mr. Sabateen.

And then there are interventions by Israeli forces into Area A. Unwilling to be associated with those forces, the Palestinian officers’ policy is to withdraw from the scene when the Israelis are operating, he said.

“This undermines the prestige of the Palestinian police,” said Mr. Sabateen.

The Israel Defence Forces, of course, have a different perspective, recalling that former Palestinian security officers, including a CIA-trained sniper, did in fact turn their guns on Israel during the Second Intifada.

However, the West Bank is a far safer place today, with 2012 being the first year in a decade when no Israeli was killed in a terrorist attack originating there.

And the newly upgraded, Canadian-advised Palestinian forces, making regular contact with the Israelis, have been “vital” to fighting crime in the West Bank, said Capt. Eytan Buchman, a spokesman for the IDF.

The more they’re willing to do there, the less we do, and we’re happy with that

“The more they’re willing to do there, the less we do, and we’re happy with that,” he said.

There have been isolated incidents, though, in which individual officers or units have targeted Israelis, including an encounter earlier this year in Area A where “Palestinian security forces and Israeli forces almost squared off ,” he said.

“We were on a patrol there, and they were trying to obstruct the patrol.”

Col. Dermer sees the Palestinian forces as actually sharing a common goal with the Israelis: neutralizing Hamas — rivals of the Palestinian Authority’s governing Fatah — and other extremists bent on terrorism in the West Bank. “Their number one enemy is Islamic radicalism, it’s not Israel.”

He laments, though, that American diplomats have failed to exploit the remarkable, if controversial, links between Israeli and Palestinian militaries forged by Canada and others, which he believes could have been a springboard to help revive the moribund peace process.

“The [security program] ultimately created the political space that everyone was demanding,” he said. “And it has never been utilized, it’s never been taken advantage of.”